


So We Can Start Again

by hunterfics



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Discussion of Death, Minor Character Death, like it doesn't even happen in the fic it's just a plot thing, like seriously minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 08:30:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4297782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunterfics/pseuds/hunterfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Phil is looking at him with a melancholy calmness in his eyes and it makes Dan's chest ache. They feel things very differently, it seems. Phil grieves quietly, alone, and Dan needs someone to listen to him whine.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He wishes, not for the first time, that he were more like Phil.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	So We Can Start Again

**Author's Note:**

> sort of vaguely inspired by Charlie McDonnell's short film [Our Brother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu8KUfs_PTY%0A), which is really beautiful and sad and lovely and if you haven't watched it yet you definitely should (title from Winter Song by Sara Bareilles)
> 
> come say hello on [tumblr](http://hearteyeshowell.tumblr.com/)! and reblog the fic [here](http://hearteyeshowell.tumblr.com/post/123562435069/title-so-we-can-start-again-word-count-5-326)

It would be better, Dan thinks, if it were raining. At least then it would match the occasion.

He feels sort of weird, unbalanced and not quite right in his body and in his head. He wants to be at home under a blanket or three, not out on a hill in the English countryside, squinting against the sun's hot summer glare and wishing he'd worn a pair of shorts.

Phil's walking next to him, hunched against the wind and silent. He hasn't said a word since they left their hotel room earlier that morning, gripped each other's hands tightly in the elevator for a fraction of a second before folding in on themselves and facing the day.

The bus is small and slow, crawling up hills at a pace so snail-like that Dan's tempted to disembark and make the trek on foot. He almost says as much to Phil, in an attempt to break the tension between them, but when he looks over Phil's staring down at his slightly-shaking hands, lips tight and shoulders slouched up and in. Dan stares at him for a moment, reaches out and gives his knee a gentle squeeze.

“You okay?” he murmurs. Phil glances at him, the corners of his lips twitching into the brief semblance of a halfhearted smile.

“Yeah,” he replies, shrugging, and Dan can tell he doesn't mean it but he doesn't press the subject.

Fifteen more minutes pass before their stop comes up. Dan hits the button and the bus eases to the kerb.

“This is us, c'mon,” he whispers, nudging Phil's elbow with his own. Phil nods and they stand up, make their way up to the door.

“Have a good 'un, lads,” the bus driver says cheerfully, all Northern cheer and hospitality. Dan smiles politely at him.

“Yeah, thanks, you as well,” he replies, stepping off the bus. A gust of wind takes him by surprise, makes his fringe lift from his forehead and cools the sweat beginning to form on his back. Phil's standing motionless, staring around at the unfamiliar landscape.

“C'mon,” Dan says. He puts a hand at the small of Phil's back for a second. It startles him into moving.

The cemetery is just a block away from the bus stop, and the iron gates are small and black and strangely intimidating. Dan's breath catches in his throat when he reaches out to push them open. The metal is hot under his hand and Phil is trailing behind him like a ghost.

“Where did PJ say it was?” Dan asks. He feels hollowed out and strange, out of place. He's never much liked graveyards.

“West, a bit in.” Phil's voice is quiet and nearly lost in the wind.

“Right, this way I think then,” Dan says. They head down the westward path, surrounded by stones and bright green trees, emerald grass and the buried remains of people Dan has never known.

Death is such a strange thing, an unavoidable truth that everyone seems to be doing their best to avoid. It scares Dan, a little, but being here is oddly peaceful.

The west lot is on a long sloping hill and it's lovely, all green grass and blue sky and warm sunshine and flowers. No one else is around and it makes the knot of anxiety in Dan's chest ease a little, that they'll be able to do this in peace. He can't imagine having to talk to fans right now, much less take selfies or give hugs.

“There,” Phil says, pointing. Dan follows his finger to a grave at the far corner of the lot, still covered in fresh dirt, and his stomach drops to somewhere round his knees. He nods, bites down hard on his lip and meets Phil's eyes.

“Are you okay to do this?” he asks. Phil blinks at him, eyes pale and sad. “It's alright if you're not. We can just. We can go home.”

There's a long pause, the silence broken only by the rustling of the wind in the grass. A chocolate wrapper skitters along the path and Phil bends down, picks it up and tucks it into his back pocket, then takes a deep breath and sets his shoulder.

“We can't go home,” he says, soft and fragile and determined. “We didn't – this is it, Dan. This is all we've got left.”

Dan sighs shakily, nods once.

“Let's go then.”

The rustling of the grass under their feet as they make their way over to the grave is unreasonably loud in the quietness of the cemetery. Dan wishes he could just float. He thinks maybe all the racket they're making is disrespectful to the dead.

He hasn't been to a funeral since he was five. This isn't even a funeral – they didn't go to that. It had seemed too strange, after so long. He regrets it now. Everything was so easy to fix, in retrospect.

They reach the grave and stare down at it, silent, the weight of sadness holding their mouths shut. The headstone is simple, engraved with a fairly unextraordinary _Christopher Kendall – he laughs on_.

Dan stares at the letters, his stomach churning slightly. He feels very detached from this moment, this realisation that there will be no fixing anything. The realisation that this is all they have left of Chris – a headstone in Harrogate and a youtube channel that nearly killed him and the frayed ends of a friendship Dan thought was stronger than it really was.

It stings a little, in a strange, muffled sort of way. Dan's the sort of person who feels regret very deeply, but this is different. This is more than regret – this is sadness and emptiness and guilt all wrapped up into one messy little package, and it's not something Dan is able to ignore.

This isn't going to be something he can tuck into a drawer and pretend to forget about for months. This is real and permanent and immediate. This is someone being gone without closure, someone who meant very much to Dan for a very significant part of his life.

It was only two or three years that they were properly friends. But they were good years, brilliant years where the world seemed to align itself with the stars for them all. Dan has never let himself admit it but he's missed the way it felt to be with Phil and Chris and PJ, all together with an unspoken understanding between them that they were something important and special and good.

It's hard to remember, now, what exactly it was that sparked the change, that widened the cracks in their foundation until they were too wide to reach across. There's no way to pin the blame on just one person. They all did their own kinds of damage.

“I miss him,” Phil says. His voice is clear and matter-of-fact.

Dan swallows hard.

“Yeah, I. Me too.”

They stand there for a few more minutes, the sun beating down on the tops of their heads. Dan is starting to sweat but he feels numb, empty and sad deep in his skin and bones.

“Did you want to say anything?” he asks. Phil turns his head to meet Dan's eyes.

“Dunno what I'd say,” he says. Dan bites his lip, nods.

“Me either.”

They pause for a second. Then Phil pulls his hand out of his pocket and crouches, his long legs folding in half underneath him as he places a Kinder egg against the headstone.

“We can go now,” he says, solemn and quiet as he stands up. Dan swallows hard and nods.

“Yeah.”

A bird squawks in the trees and they both startle slightly. Phil holds out his hand and after a moment's hesitation Dan reaches out and takes it, gives it a gentle squeeze before pulling away.

“Let's go home,” he sighs, dropping his head back and staring up at the cloudy sky. His eyes burn with the brightness and he has to blink away sudden tears. He feels very small and fragile here, like any sudden movement might break him in half.

They wait for a bus for nearly twenty minutes before one comes. Once they're settled into a pair of seats right at the back, Phil leans his head on Dan's shoulder. Dan stiffens momentarily and looks around like they're being watched. For all he knows, they are – their audiences are so huge now. But they're alone on the bus and no one's outside, so he allows himself to relax, sets his hand on Phil's thigh just above his knee and moves his fingers in slow soothing circles. Phil sighs heavily and shifts a little to get more comfortable as the bus heads back into the centre of town. His head is a grounding weight on Dan's shoulder and Dan tips his own head so it's resting on top of Phil's, close and heavy and strangely comforting.

Phil sighs again, shaky this time, and Dan turns to place a careful kiss on the top of his head. They don't say anything for the rest of the evening.

It's easier that way, somehow.

 

-

 

Going back to London makes Dan feel slightly better. It's easier to be in a familiar environment, with the sounds of the city a lulling constant that Harrogate was lacking. It's easier to get caught up in things, in youtube and netflix and planning for the radio show. It's easier to ignore the fact that they still haven't talked about it, about the weird loss eating away at Dan's chest.

The conversation won't be pretty, and it won't be easy, and they're putting it off because that's what they do best.

Dan wants to talk about it though, ends up calling PJ at 11:30 on a Thursday morning with ragged breath and a frantic tilt to his voice that he can't get rid of.

“I was fucking awful to him, Peej, he  _tried_ and I told him to fuck off, I ignored his calls, I deleted his texts without even opening them. I was  _awful_ , and now he's fucking  _dead_ and there's nothing I can do about it,” he babbles, pacing round his room like if he goes fast enough he'll be able to turn back time. “I'm like. I've had fucking breakdowns, I knew what he was dealing with, and I was so  _selfish_ and  _scared_ and I  _miss_ him, fuck!”

There's a drawn-out stretch of silence in which Dan ends up sitting on the floor, legs folded and back slumped, head propped up in his hand. Rain rattles his windows and masks the sound of his choked breathing.

“I miss him too,” PJ says, voice like cracked glass. Dan sniffs hard, scrubs his hand across his eyes roughly. Guilt is making him nauseous, clawing at the inside of his stomach like a wild animal.

“I have to go, sorry for. Like,” Dan mutters. He can't see straight, needs to be somewhere where he can kick and scream until he tires himself out and falls limp to the floor.

“You don't have to apologise,” PJ tells him. “I understand. I – call me soon okay? We'll. We'll do something.”

“Yeah,” Dan says, and he tries to mean it. “Yeah, definitely. Bye, Peej.”

“Bye.”

He rings off, tosses his phone away from him like it burns, then slumps against the side of his bed, his legs stretched out on the carpet in front of him. His head falls backwards against his mattress and he stares at the white expanse of ceiling, his vision going blurry and unfocused. He needs to talk to someone, needs to have  _someone_ accept his apology. The guilt is going to drive him mad otherwise.

Keys click in the lock downstairs, the door to their flat opening and then shutting again before Dan hears Phil's footsteps on their front stairs.

“Hey,” he calls, his voice flat.

“Hi,” Phil shouts back. “'S  _really_ coming down out there. I got milk.” He can hear Phil shuffling around in the kitchen, opening and then closing the fridge before trudging up the corridor to the junction between their rooms.

“Thanks,” Dan says, looking up to see Phil leaning against the doorframe, fringe and hoodie soaked through.

“Yeah, 's fine, I got the Rude Health almond milk again, it's in the fridge now. Also why are you on the floor?”

Dan smiles a little, small and fake, before pushing himself up off the floor and dusting off his bum.

“Having a crisis, did you really expect anything less?” he tries to joke, but Phil just frowns at him. 

“Don't joke, Dan, come on, you're good, yeah?” he says. Dan blinks, bites his lip, and looks away.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah, I'm good.”

He's anything but good. He's holding cold grief in the spaces between his ribs and he's tired and he's sad and he has so much to do, so much snapping at his heels and crowding him into corners. There are deadlines and emails and people always crying for his attention and all he wants, all he has wanted for days now, all he has wanted since he heard the news from PJ, is to stand outside and scream at the sky.

“Good,” Phil agrees, and he turns and ducks into his own bedroom. Dan stares after him for a moment, listens to the sound of Phil's tv turning on before he steps forward and shuts his door. It clicks closed and Dan lets out a weird sobbing sigh, then trudges forward and flops onto his bed, burying his face in his pillow. It's safe here, dark and soft, warm and solitary and closed-in. No one to talk to him here but himself.

That's not actually what he wants, but  _god_ , who else is he meant to talk to? 

Dan wants to talk to Phil. There's only so many times he can talk to PJ before they both go mad with it, and Dan doesn't understand how Phil still hasn't said a word about Chris since Harrogate. It doesn't make  _sense_ . If anything, Phil should be more upset than Dan. He and Chris were always closer. He even tried to mend things between them, tried to rebuild the bridges that Dan burned so thoroughly. 

It had been years since Dan had seen Chris. He hadn't cared then, had figured it was good to have such a volatile person out of his life. But now every second spent apart cuts the back of his throat like shards of glass, leaves him cold and wispy and hollow.

He hasn't tweeted since they got back from Harrogate and people are beginning to wonder if he's died. He can't be bothered to favourite anything, definitely can't be bothered to think of something interesting to say to his two million plus followers. Even his drafts, usually a gold mine of existential panic and #relatable bullshit, seem flat and empty and useless. It starts to turn into a gargantuan task, looming ahead of him like a monolith. He closes twitter and locks his phone and slides it away.

Phil, meanwhile, is buzzing around doing what appears to be quite a lot. He does laundry and tidies his room and scripts videos and tweets about it, even does a spontaneous liveshow on wednesday after Dan quietly skips his own. He keeps himself busy and it makes Dan's head hurt. The constant flurries of movement are hard for his brain to hold on to.

Dan needs quiet and peace and someone to talk with. He had hoped Phil would be that person.

 

-

 

“Can we talk about Chris?”

It's been nearly two weeks and they've gone back to a semblance of normalcy, at least online. Dan has tweeted  _three times_ today, an impressive number given he's struggling to think of things to say to his best friend, much less over two million people online.

Dan watches as Phil realises what's been said to him, watches him freeze, his fingers hovering over a stack of clean dishes. His hands are shaking.

“Please, Phil,” Dan whispers.

“I – ” Phil pauses, opens his mouth and closes it again. He looks like a fish gasping for air on the deck of a boat and Dan's skin crawls at the vivid mental image.

Phil lets out a shaky exhale, then resumes putting away dishes, slow and methodical. He doesn't look at Dan.

“I'm busy right now,” he says. Dan can feel hysterical laughter creeping up his esophagus. He swallows it down.

“You're always fucking busy,” he says, steely, biting. He can't tell if he's going to scream or break down crying and he's not sure which would be worse. “You're always too  _fucking_ busy, or too tired, or – ”

“Shut up,” Phil interrupts. He glares at Dan, eyes and voice like shards of ice. “Shut up, Dan, you don't know what you're on about.”

Dan wants to punch him. Dan wants to make him feel something, wants him to cry so Dan doesn't feel like the only weak one. He wants to sink to the floor and act like a stroppy little kid, kick and scream until he's too tired to do anything but cry himself to sleep.

He wants to talk about Chris with Phil.

“I  _need_ to talk about it!” Dan says, shaking his hands frantically in front of his chest. His eyes are wide and his voice is high and strained, a tremor in it that Dan's never heard coming from his own mouth before. “I  _need_ to talk about it with someone and you miss him too, I know you do, why don't you want to  _talk_ about it!”

“I'm not  _ready_ , Dan!” Phil shouts, whirling around and slamming a cupboard door shut. It bounces back and he catches it, his knuckles white with the force of his grip. “I'm not ready and I don't know if I ever will be, okay? I know we messed up with Chris and I know that he's  _dead_ and I don't want to talk about it! Alright! Do you understand that!”

They're phrased as questions but Dan knows they're not. He knows exactly what Phil is doing and he knows he can't stop it.

“Fuck,” he mutters, dragging his hands over his face and into his hair. Bitterness and anger are coiling in his stomach and he kind of wants to hit something. He kind of wishes someone would hit him. “ _Fuck_ , alright, fine. Fine. Let me know when you're ready then. Fuck.”

Phil doesn't turn around, just stands there, tension tight in his back, his hand still squeezing the cupboard door. Dan takes a deep breath and turns away to leave the kitchen.

“I'm sorry,” Phil says. Dan snorts, derisive.

“Fuck off.”

Phil doesn't move. They stand in stony silence for a few seconds before Dan rolls his eyes and storms out of the kitchen. He leaves the door open, finds a slimy satisfaction at knowing Phil is the one who will have to pull it closed. 

 

-

 

“I don't like fighting with you.”

Phil's quiet voice makes Dan jump and clutch at his chest, gasping as he whips around and tugs his headphones violently out of his ears. He wasn't listening to music – the album he'd put on had ended nearly twenty minutes ago and he just hadn't bothered finding something else – and he'd been totally out of it, staring at his phone with unfocused eyes and a blissfully blank mind.

“ _Jesus_ , Phil, give me a bit of warning, will you,” Dan says, all racing breath and fluttering heart. Phil raises his eyebrows. He's leaning against the doorframe again, coffee cup clutched between his narrow fingers, glasses on. Messy hair and bright blue pyjama pants and a sad tilt to his mouth that Dan wants to throw away.

He isn't really angry anymore. He doesn't know what he's feeling.

“Didn't know if you would hear me,” Phil tells him. He takes a sip of coffee, then bites his lip and sighs. “Can I come in.”

Dan hesitates, glances at his unmade bed, then shrugs and scoots towards the headboard.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. Phil nods and steps forward, folds himself onto Dan's bed and sets his coffee on the ground.

“I'm sorry,” he says after a minute. Dan frowns down at his hands, draped limply over his calves. “I know you've been, like. Really struggling with this. And I know I haven't been there for you at all.”

“'S okay,” Dan begins, but Phil shakes his head.

“It's not. It's not okay that you're so sad and I'm not letting you talk about it. I just. I haven't been ready. Death is really hard for me.”

They sink into silence. A police car speeds past outside, siren wailing, and both of them look towards the window with twin expressions of annoyance on their faces.

“Guess the crime,” Phil mumbles, and they both let out soft exhalations of almost-laughter.

“That's my thing,” Dan says, almost too quiet to be heard. He puts his hand on Phil's knee, squeezes gently before moving away. Phil pushes a hand through his hair and shrugs.

“Anyway. I really am sorry. I could, like. I could help you find someone to talk to? Like a therapist or something?”

Dan's heart sinks to somewhere in his stomach, cold sadness seeping through his blood. He can't imagine talking through the situation to someone who wasn't there, to someone who doesn't understand why everything went to shit so fast. He doesn't want to talk to anyone but Phil.

“I don't want to pay someone to listen to me and pretend to care,” he says, snorting bitterly. Phil raises his eyebrows.

“Therapy isn't that bad. I had a grief counselor my last year of uni, after my housemate died. She helped a lot.”

Dan sometimes forgets that Phil had a friend in uni who died. They don't really talk about it and there's never much of a reason to bring it up.

“I just.” Dan hesitates, reaches out and tugs on a loose thread poking out of his duvet. “I don't think I'd be able to explain why we stopped talking to him without, like, going off on a tangent about everything I've done wrong in my life. And I don't think I can do that without going into a crisis, and I. I can't handle that right now and I really. I don't want to talk to a stranger about something so personal, I guess?”

Phil is looking at him with a melancholy calmness in his eyes and it makes Dan's chest ache. They feel things very differently, it seems. Phil grieves quietly, alone, and Dan needs someone to listen to him whine.

He wishes, not for the first time, that he were more like Phil.

“I understand,” Phil says, gentle and slow. “I'm sorry.”

Dan doesn't know how his eyes produce tears so quickly, but he's crying before the word  _sorry_ is entirely out of Phil's mouth, hot salt water rolling down his cheeks and making his lips taste like the sea. Phil winces and looks away.

“Me too,” Dan mutters, his voice cracking and strained. “Shit.” Phil clambers off of Dan's bed, tugs at the hem of his shirt for a few seconds before darting out of Dan's room and into his own. Dan flops onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. His vision is blurry and his chest is shaking with the force of his tears and he's exhausted right down to his bones.

 

-

 

Grief is a heavy weight between Dan's shoulderblades. It makes him slouch more than usual, even now, a month and four days later. It's easier to carry sometimes, on the days when he is busy, on the days when he has things to keep his mind off of the weird gaping emptiness in the corner of his chest.

On other days, on quiet days with nothing much to do, it's harder than ever to not curl up and blame himself for everything.

He knows it was an accident, the way Chris died. It's not like Dan pushed the ladder over and  _made_ it fall on him. They weren't even in the same city when it happened. But that's not why he's blaming himself.

The guilt he feels is for never bothering to fix the brokenness between them. The guilt he feels is for clinging to righteous anger and for never reaching out when he knew Chris needed someone who understood. The guilt he feels is for letting his own fear take precedence over a friendship that was far more important to him than he could have ever guessed.

In a book the regret clawing at his insides would be called poetic justice. In real life it's just shitty.

 

-

 

“Are you afraid of dying?”

The question comes out of nowhere and it makes Dan freeze, his hands hovering over his laptop keyboard. It's three in the afternoon on a Tuesday and sunlight is streaming through the windows into the lounge and it seems very inappropriate to talk about death when it's not dark and gloomy.

Phil is curled up at the other end of the couch, looking small and pensive, his hands picking at the corner of his phone case. Dan shuts his laptop and pushes it to the side, then takes a deep breath.

“I – not really? I mean, a bit, I think everyone's a little bit afraid, but. It seems to me that, you know, once we're dead, once we die, that's sort of it. There's nothing after that. So it's a bit silly to be afraid of, you know, nothing.” He stumbles over his words a few times and he's not sure if he's making sense, but Phil bites his lip and nods, his eyebrows pulling together in a tiny frown.

“That's.” He pauses. “That's very logical.”

They sink into quiet for a few long seconds before Phil pulls in another breath.

“It's like I can't get away from it, you know? From. From people I know and love just.” He makes a choppy, aborted gesture with his hands. Dan nods. “And it's so sudden and there's so much I never got to say and I just. I'm so scared. I could literally die today,  _you_ could die today, and there's nothing I can do to, like, stop it or prevent it. There's no way to know.”

Dan swallows hard, nods. He understands the fear, understands why Phil's hands are shaking like leaves in a storm. He understands that there's nothing anyone can do to make reality any easier.

“I know,” he whispers. Phil sighs.

“It makes me jealous of religious people, sometimes. I mean, that's why I'm so afraid, you know, because that's it. Once you're gone you're gone. And it must be really comforting to believe that there's something more,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. “Or to believe that you'll see everyone again. Like a big party up in the sky.”

“Would you really want to party in the clouds forever though?” Dan asks, skeptical. He shifts his body over so he's sitting closer to Phil and tilts his head back so he's staring at the ceiling too. “Honestly, like, I think once you accept that this is your only shot it gets a bit easier. It did for me, like, I realised that this is my one life and I have to live it in the best way I know how, and so I did, and I am, and that has to be enough.”

He's rambling but Phil's nodding like it helps, like Dan's words aren't a jumbled mess of thoughts that have been spinning through his head since he was eighteen years old.

“Yeah,” Phil breathes, and Dan relaxes a little. They sit quietly for a few minutes, their breathing slow and steady and in sync.

“Can I talk about Chris?” Dan whispers after a little while. He watches Phil swallow hard and nod, and the knot that's been sitting in Dan's chest starts to ease slightly. “He was – I mean, he was your friend before he was mine, but I always really liked him. I always really trusted him and I regret letting go of that so much. I feel really, like,  _guilty_ about it.” He stops, unsure of what to say, and Phil nods.

“Me too,” he agrees. He sits up straighter and turns so he's facing Dan, who follows suit.

“I just, like. It's a bit late but I wish I had fixed things, you know? Because in hindsight it was so easy to fix. I'd just been so caught up in our shit, in my shit, and I took it out on him and I regret that so, so much.”

“Yeah,” Phil sighs. Dan picks at a hangnail on his left hand and tries to keep his breathing steady.

“Remember when I ran into him though, earlier in the summer?” Phil continues after a few seconds. “We had a nice catch up, got Starbucks and everything. He was doing really well. He said he was really happy, he'd just finished with Oscar's Hotel and he was really excited about it and youtube and life. He was in a good place, you know? He wasn't angry anymore.”

Dan can feel tears pricking at his eyes, the familiar heat of them rising up in his face and throat.

“Good,” he says. His voice is small and hoarse. “I'm – that's really good.”

“Yeah,” Phil agrees. He sniffs. “So, like, it's okay to miss him, but. At least he was happy, you know?”

“Yeah.” Dan reaches up and scrubs his wrist across his eyes. It comes away damp and he lets out a shaky breath. “Yeah, that's really good.”

Phil nods. He reaches out and catches Dan's hand, runs his thumb along the streak of dampness that Dan's tears left behind. Dan swallows hard. The knot in his chest is unraveling with every word that's spoken and it's such a relief to finally be talking about this.

“I think. It's been hard for me to talk about,” Phil says, his voice small and cracked. “Because I've done this before. And it feels like, the same. Again and again. And. Sometimes it's easier for me to just ignore it. But that's not fair on you. So I'm really sorry.”

Dan exhales slowly and nods. A tear slips out of Phil's eye and runs down his face, gets caught in the corner of his nose, and Dan reaches out to tug him in for a hug. They lean against each other for a few seconds, heads on shoulders, and Dan can feel Phil crying against the skin of his neck.

“You're my best friend,” Phil mumbles, his voice very close to Dan's ear. Dan nods. “And I'm really sorry I haven't been able to talk about it. I'm sorry I'm so shit.”

“You're not – Phil, you're not shit,” Dan replies, quiet and aching. “This situation is shit but you're not at all. We just.” He shifts his hand so it's at the base of Phil's head, scritches his fingers through the short hair there. “We just grieve in different ways. I'm sorry I've been pushing you.”

They pull away and smile sadly at each other, and the sun doesn't seem so out of place anymore. Dan can still feel the grief like a wound, but it's scabbing over now, maybe. It's starting to heal.

“I really love you,” Phil murmurs. Dan nods. “Like. You're my best friend. I want to be here for you.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. He leans his head on Phil's shoulder. “I know. I want that too. I love you too.”

They sink into silence but it's comfortable. It's safe. The sun streams into their lounge and it feels like hope and maybe happiness, and this a silence that Dan isn't afraid of anymore. 

 


End file.
